Family Court Costs

Fri 19th May 2017

I need some reliable info. I have been crippled for the last year in custody hearings at the FC and my bet is I’m going to come second again! My predicament is that the is to be a final hearing next month and while I am entitled to legal aid I don’t use it as it is merely a loan. My question is this – is there a way for me to bail out before the hearing and avoid paying costs? You see it looks like my ex-wife will ask for costs through her lawyer, so to add insult to injury, I will have to pay for her lawyer, while not being able to afford one of my one – they call that justice! It seems pathetic to me that she has stolen my kids, my health and my job and now intends to cripple me financially. I have a cylinder of helium close by just in case the mood takes me to finish it for good. Wishing you all a very good evening. 🙂

53 Responses to “Family Court Costs”

Well I have not repaid my legal aid. The proceedings busted me and I stayed bust. But I have not had any approaches of any kind to check that I’m still poor. I suggest that if you are entitled, then you might consider legal aid. You might end up not repaying it. By the way – out of interest – Has anyone heard of a female having to repay legal aid?

One option would be to just represent yourself and ignor the lawyers.
Myself and others have chosen that option.
At least then, in the not so distant future.
Your children will work out for themselves.
That you were trying to have a relationship with them.
They will also work out who was trying to stop that from happening.

I tend to agree with DJ Ward.
Lawyers know that the system is weighed against men; so they will still hop onto the gravy train and ride the system – your pocket, via your agony – for as long as you allow.

I understand that the Family Courts Act does not permit ‘vexatious or frivolous’ matters to be contended in Court. IOW as I understand; as You will only be allowed to request a hearing in regards to the benefit that regards ‘the tantamount importance to the lives of the child/ren’; negates the position whereby Your ex can be awarded legal costs.

Your wife will not be allowed to levy Her (legal) costs onto You, unless under the circumstances whereby She is awarded a win in litigation over a vast estate.

Thanks all, once again you have been great for my spirits with your responses. Downunder the lawyers in question is Liz Lewes of Cuba Family Law – I’d love to hear anyone speak kindly of this crowd (bar women). I will proceed after considering what you said – you are right, to bail out now would not sit well with me; I would be allowing the scare tactics take over. I hit my 15 yo son some 12 months ago, I lost it as I had been fired from my temporary due to my ex not wanting me in the same building as her (she worked their permanently). As usual Ms Lewes filed for custody (ex parte) which she got. Three months later she applied for a protection order (this if successful would be my second from the same outfit – 7 years apart). Luckily the judge put this on notice. Now whenever me ex sees my car (we live in adjoining suburbs) she calls the police and makes an “incident” of it, thus building a case out of nothing. So I have lost my job, my children, my sanity, my new partner (she was lovely but couldn’t stand the stress, I don’t blame her), and then comes the child support. After review they are now taking $85/week leaving me with $165/week to keep the house that my children were born in – I live with the help of charity from the food-bank. The cherry on the cake is the request for costs – Lewes will be asking that I pay for her fees and the court costs (can we stop calling it a court as it doesn’t resemble a court in any way – an out of touch old person who believes they understand probability, equality or justice). Oh yes, I forgot to mention my ex earns $82K working part time, has a payment plan to pay off Lewes on a weekly basis, has her family close by and a new partner who’s son molested my daughter when she was 3, that’s never been addressed by the court in any significant way.

So that’s were I’m at – I regret hitting my son, I regret being angry and depressed, not being able to see any colour in this grey dismal existence. Oh yes forgot to mention, I had a heart attack 6 weeks ago, my doctor said he thought that was predictable and expected much worse. I’ve had to give away all the kids stuff (clothes that are too small for them now, toys & games), the very sight of a photo or artefact of theirs brings tears to my eyes. I tell myself to pretend I don’t have children, many people don’t, to forget the last 15 years, “this too shall pass”. I just detest the insult of having my children removed and having to pay for it!!

Thanks again guys for your comments and suggestions, very much appreciated.

martin @5: Thanks for sharing your story although depressing; we have heard so many similar stories. You are a victim of a corrupt, dysfunctional, unwise and sexist system.

We don’t know the details of your hitting your son, how old he was, whether that hitting was a natural consequence of disobedient or unacceptable behaviour and whether the hitting effectively set a boundary that ultimately would benefit your son. However, we feel quite certain that any harm you caused to your son pales into insignificance compared with the harm his mother is causing him by damaging his relationship with his father and depriving him of his father’s full role in his development. Not to mention the harm to society generally by condoning and encouraging a woman in misrepresenting truth and treating you without fairness, caring or ethics.

Stay strong, tell the truth calmly but defiantly, don’t hold yourself responsible for your ex’s nasty behaviour and low morals or for the child-abusing stupidity of our state. Try to live life with as many enjoyable activities as possible that take your mind off the stresses, even though this isn’t easy.

Represent yourself in Family Court; you seem to be intelligent and literate. If you can afford it, buy half an hour of a lawyer’s time every now and then to look over and advise you on your affidavits and intended testimony without representing you as such.

Downunder @6 – yes they call it job seekers, yet it is sickness benefit – when your heart is broken both emotionally and physically (as I’m sure many if not all of you have experienced) it’s a right kick in the gonads to be told in a review that “you were capable of earning $46k last year so you should be able to earn that this year” – neglecting that I have just lost my job and had a heart attack.

Oh yes, the police, (lovely bunch) have me in court next month for “misuse of a telephone” Telecommunications Act 2001 s112(2)a – uses or causes or permits to be used, any telephone device for the purpose of disturbing, annoying, or irritating any person, whether by calling up without speech or by wantonly or maliciously transmitting communications or sounds, with the intention of offending the recipient” Now this carries a $2K fine or 3 months in the slammer, but that isn’t the point – I could have paid the fine, or done the time, but the criminal conviction will put me out of work in IT for ever – maybe longer! :p Now why would the police do such a thing – well, because they want me on something, my ex complained that I called her in the wee hours of the morning which while understandably inconvenient to her, was little compared to the angst that I was going through. The purpose of the call was to get her to see reason, to see the madness and the hurt she was/is causing. It will all come down intent. Ironically I used to represent a major bank at TUANZ (the Telecom Users Association of New Zealand). Now imagine how this conviction would look on my CV!! Incidentally, can anyone remember what a mobile phone looked like in 2001 when this Act was written? Who uses words like wantonly???

Ministry of Men’s Affair @7 – I am glad you see things in the right context – I am ashamed of my behaviour as it was wrong. The police who attended stated that it appeared as though it was minor a few taps to the arm, no bruising, and that they believed that the motivation behind my ex calling them was based on “custody”. As it happened that’s exactly what it was; that day I had called the court to make an arrangement for mediation with my ex to discuss how the parenting order hadn’t been working., only to find out later that day via Liz Lewes that my kids had been taken out of town and an application was before the court.

Recently I took the opportunity to ‘mildly’ aggrevate a fresh faced constable about gender disparity in policing.

Watching his pupils narrow to pinholes, was a good indication of his limited tolerance for public opinion, but more likely indicative of the instilled hatred that is part of the current training programme.

Voices @12: It may be true that a small amount of alcohol is unlikely to cause damage to the foetus. It’s likely that the benefit to the foetus of being inside a pregnant mother who relaxes and enjoys a drink with friends will outweigh any damage from a small amount of alcohol. It may be an overreaction to advise total abstinence but it’s a stretch to call it ‘sexist’.

Also, the argument by these femaleist ‘experts’ ignores the benefit of a simple rule that, if followed, avoids the possibility of losing sight of how much and how often one drinks and the possibility that reduced self-control and impaired judgment after one or two drinks might lead a pregnant woman to forget about foetal safety.

The complaint about women being ‘accosted, spoken to and started at’ (poetic wording, going to great creative lengths to make it sound bad…) ignores the fact that women who would be spoken to judgmentally probably seem a bit drunker than is safe for a foetus, and ignores the higher good involved in trying to protect a developing child. What if men complained that they are being accosted, spoken to and started at when they shout angrily at a young child? It’s a good analogy given that seeing a bit of parental anger is unlikely to cause significant harm and may even involve some important teaching that the world can react badly to some things a child might do, whereas disapproval from bystanders will be desirable if any man overdoes it.

The essence of what these experts are arguing is that women shouldn’t be held responsible for protecting a foetus, shouldn’t have to follow any rules and and shouldn’t ever be criticized.

The Centre of Parenting Culture Studies sounds like an interesting creation. From the opinions expressed by those running it, it probably operates very similarly to ‘Gender Studies’ courses, i.e. a front for disseminating femaleist propaganda.

The last paragraph was a strange one:

Accurate data on the the effects of moderate alcohol consumption during pregnancy is almost impossible to achieve because it would be unethical to initiate wide-scale studies which compared the outcomes for children of drinkers to those of non-drinkers.

Why would it be unethical to compare outcomes for children of drinkers and non-drinkers? Isn’t that exactly how we would find out whether moderate drinking damages babies? Perhaps the journalist meant to say it would be unethical to conduct a randomized controlled trial in which pregnant women were assigned to groups given either moderate alcohol or non-alcoholic placebo then the babies tested for group differences. On the other hand I wouldn’t be surprised if the paragraph is accurate and the ‘experts’ believe it’s unethical to conduct any study that might lead to women being held accountable for their behaviour.

At some point we have to stop blaming our partners for our own violence, or inability to control our impulses and emotions when they make us the victim.

Feeling bad or their actions (or responses to your actions) being the perceived cause of anger/sadness etc is not a justification for harassing your ex-partner in the middle of the night, nor is it an excuse for hitting a child.

There is counseling available to all New Zealanders to help reduce violence and come to terms with grief and loss, and much of it is free.

If you have not already (genuinely) sought this assistance that might be the best thing for all involved, you particularly. It’s not about you being a bad person, it’s about what you feel about things, why you feel bad about it, and ways to manage events or emotions so they don’t manifest in the self-destructive behaviour you have spoken about, which ultimately hurt you along with your family. The situation you are all in is not just of your ex’s making, you understand that I think.

Regarding finances. A benefit is just enough to get by on for most people. Before any deductions. Make sure you are getting everything you are entitled to in the way of additional support – AS, TAS, food grants if you needs it, and any other money for stuff in the form of interest free loans for necessities like car repairs, tenencies etc. I don’t know if budgeting services are useful, they might have advice about ways to reduce costs or increase income while still being on a bene.

Of course this post might not be as welcome as any number of posts that seek to admonish violence or harassment, or that demonise your ex, the courts, or all the lawyers involved, but the only one of those you can have any real control over is yourself. So maybe it’s more productive to start there, to preserve the relationships you have, and might have down the road.

Man X Norton, it would be very easy and perfectly ethical to test such theories.

You simply take a large enough cohort of women that have children at sufficient age for the particular effects of alcohol to be measurable and ask them a battery of questions about their awareness of fetal alcohol syndrome, whether they drank during pregnancy, whether the drank normally, how much that is, whether the pregnancy was planned etc etc. And the data can be extracted from those answers.

“At some point we have to stop blaming our partners for our own violence, or inability to control our impulses and emotions when they make us the victim.” yes that’s true, but has not relevance, I don’t know anybody who does such a thing – you might as well say “at some point we need to stop blaming KFC for abusing McDonalds” makes as much sense in this context.

“Feeling bad or their actions (or responses to your actions) being the perceived cause of anger/sadness etc is not a justification for harassing your ex-partner in the middle of the night, nor is it an excuse for hitting a child.”

Mixing up 2 things here, harassment is stealing children, not calling someone. Do some research – harassment is the repeat of some unwanted action after the recipient declares that it is harassment – Tim you are harassing me, please stop reading/responding to any of my posts. I never said it was an excuse for hitting a child however there was some research done recently in the UK that found smacking under 6 years old to be beneficial. I note to respond in an abstract cowardly manner. Get some testosterone.

“There is counseling available to all New Zealanders to help reduce violence and come to terms with grief and loss, and much of it is free.”

– Noted. I could also join NZDF, wouldn’t that work?

“If you have not already (genuinely) sought this assistance that might be the best thing for all involved, you particularly. It’s not about you being a bad person, it’s about what you feel about things, why you feel bad about it, and ways to manage events or emotions so they don’t manifest in the self-destructive behaviour you have spoken about, which ultimately hurt you along with your family. The situation you are all in is not just of your ex’s making, you understand that I think.”

– I don’t not where this comes from – are you made of jelly?

“Regarding finances. A benefit is just enough to get by on for most people. Before any deductions. Make sure you are getting everything you are entitled to in the way of additional support – AS, TAS, food grants if you needs it, and any other money for stuff in the form of interest free loans for necessities like car repairs, tenencies etc. I don’t know if budgeting services are useful, they might have advice about ways to reduce costs or increase income while still being on a bene.”

– I will reluctantly treat this as sincere, so I will just show sympathy here for you – I have finally found someone worse of than me – you have cheered me up.

“Of course this post might not be as welcome as any number of posts that seek to admonish violence or harassment, or that demonise your ex, the courts, or all the lawyers involved, but the only one of those you can have any real control over is yourself. So maybe it’s more productive to start there, to preserve the relationships you have, and might have down the road.”

– So you had the presence of mind to know that your post wouldn’t be welcome, but wrote it anyway. I am not opposed to controversy, but I will take from someone who has something to give. Again you are speaking of abstract concepts – there are no posts in this thread that admonish violence or harassment, demonise, bla, bla, bla.

Martin,
If you choose to represent yourself in court, try to submit evidence well before the required date.

Its an area that a few of us have had issues with, evidence being accepted and then regected or disregarded on the basis of double-sided printed pages or some other silly thing.
Clarity from court staff & registras
about should not be presumed.

I lost my parental rights in court.

The judge spoke to me after the hearing saying that since my evidence was inadmissable (printed double sided) no defence was presented therefore no reason not to award custody away from me.
My ex had told the courts that all my friends were gangmembers and that my daughter was in danger that I might kidnap her from school.

It is my understanding that you stay self represented and seek a McKenzie friend as a support person. They cannot legally charge you for her lawyer that is bullshit!

Now the REALLY important stuff!!!!!!!!!!!

DID you say sorry to your son and explain yourself clearly why you did what you did?

Forget everything else and work on getting your sons trust back and stay SELF represented otherwise you are F…..!

Next, do something that inspires you or motivates you, I put a picture on the bathroom mirror of my son and every day I said “I will get you back”. I did, and I have told him he makes me very happy to be around. Just had an Indefinite Protection Order against me on my son OVERTURNED from that pedophile judge BURNS, so now back to 50/50.

Now my son wants to be with me FULL TIME!

STAY POSITIVE – Go swimming it burns out shit energy and you can think while your exercising.

Lastly – You made a mistake, guess what, you have acknowledged it well done, that takes Balls! Even BIGGER ones if you commit to your children/s outcomes. DO NOT retaliate to any attempts of other party getting you angry. We are here to help.

Stay POSITIVE and seek like minded people and support from this group. You are not alone!

Hello Martin
I would have to agree with Buster and the rest of the contributers on here.Im another one who has been through
what you are going through.Best option is to front up and just represent yourself.Be honest and upfront with
the Judge.Bottom line is you want to be with your kids and thats that.However be prepared for whatever happens and try and keep yourself centered.Best advise from people on here is look after yourself first and foremost.
Dont waste your time trying to reason with your ex she has already caused you so much grief dont give her more of your time.Unfortunately the family court,the lawyers,Child support is part and parcel of this whole system
that will if you let it bring you down.You have to be strong as hard as that may seem and look after yourself first.Your kids will hopefully one day understand what has happened and that you were there for them.In the meantime if you want to get through this you have to be cold around the heart for your own sanity.
As for Tim@15 whats you background story or experience with not having access to your children dealing with an unreasonable ex,family court,child support,lawyers etc?Do you know how it feels to have your children taken away from you.If you did then you would understand what Martin is going through.So whats your story?

Martin, some good advice in this thread has been given about representing yourself in the FC. An important thing is to phrase everything in terms of the needs and welfare of your child(ren), not yourself. E.g. rather than “I miss my son and I am a father who should have the right to care for him”, state “My son will be missing me and has the right to benefit from contact with his father and his father’s love and care”.

Martin – your comments (particularly @17) contravene the rules of this site about personal attacks and insults. Buster’s comment @21 is also not appropriate or conducive to civilised debate. If I had seen these comments earlier they would have been removed.

I don’t see anything objectionable about Tim’s contributions. Differing points of view are welcome here provided they are presented respectfully.

At some point we have to stop blaming our partners for our own violence, or inability to control our impulses and emotions when they make us the victim.

I don’t recall reading anything to suggest that Martin is blaming his partner for his own ‘violence’. He wrote that he ‘lost it’ due to losing his job which resulted from his ex’s (non-physical) violence. He blamed her for her behaviour and for its result in losing him his job, and he expressed regret at his behaviour in ‘losing it’. He wrote nothing else to suggest he was blaming anyone else for his actions.

Whether his action is correctly defined as ‘violence’ depends upon the details. Cutting someone’s throat may be violent if done with harmful intent but not when done to enable a choking person to remain alive. Hitting one’s 15yo son may be an act of caring if done to divert him from behaviour that may result in society later hitting him in much more life damaging ways. The fact that hitting one’s son is now against the law does not equate to it being violent.

There is counseling available to all New Zealanders to help reduce violence and come to terms with grief and loss, and much of it is free.

As far as I’m aware, not much of it is free. Even when men are ordered under threat of state violence and imprisonment to attend ‘violence prevention’ programs, they still have to pay for their non-consensual treatment.

You simply take a large enough cohort of women that have children at sufficient age for the particular effects of alcohol to be measurable and ask them a battery of questions about their awareness of fetal alcohol syndrome, whether they drank during pregnancy, whether the drank normally, how much that is, whether the pregnancy was planned etc etc. And the data can be extracted from those answers.

Said with the hollow certitude of a violence prevention group ‘facilitator’! Well, yes, some data can be extracted but the only valid conclusion would be about what women stated in response to a battery of questions, not about the effects of moderate drinking on foetal development. Your experimental design relies on honesty from the subjects, and these subjects are women!. More fundamentally, you have not controlled for all the other variables that might affect foetal development.

JohnPotter @27 – John, I understand your comments re my posts, and as this is your website hence your ball and thus if you don’t like the way the game id being played you can take it home with you as you please though following your rules, I don’t see anything objectionable from what Buster had to say in 21? With regards to what you see are don’t see as objectionable about Tim’s comments is up to you, but I certainly took exception to the assumptions and inferences made, and so I find myself in a situation where I have to question your objectivity. Personally I think there is a clear conflict of interests here.

Martin #29: It’s understandable that you took exception to Tim’s patronizing assumptions and inferences, and it would be fine I think for you to say you took exception then preferably provide argument or evidence against what Tim wrote. However, name-calling and personal attacks on other contributors are outside the rules here and also reduce the standard of debate as well as not adding anything useful. It’s normal to attack the person on many social media and people might get into that habit.

Martin@29 – I also understand why you took exception to Tim@15 comments.I would of felt the same way.
I think the problem here is we have someone (Tim) commenting on something they probably have no first hand experience with and then all the theory behind it which means nothing and quite frankly is a kick in the guts to those of us who know what Martin means.You cannot beat actually living it and going through the stuff that was written by Martin.I have been in the same situation and I know others on here have as well by what they have written.
We know what Martin is talking about and how it feels for him with his kids,family court,child support,lawyers,
ex partners.Its not easy being in the system and many good parents especially fathers are getting beat into the ground.The contribution made by Tim@15 for me was not in line with what Martin was saying.
However personal attacks arent great for debate so we move on.

Ministry of Men’s Affairs @30 – That’s effectively what I said in @29, (except for the standard of debate which is in itself arguable). My point being that it is so easy to point out my lack of restraint re Tim, whereas the issue is the ludicrous matronizing assumptions. I have not changed my opinion, rather i acknowledge breaking the rules of this precious website. I don’t believe I need to provide evidence against what Tim had to write, it is rather obvious just by reading the comments. ” It’s normal to attack the person on many social media and people might get into that habit.” and…?

Look at this “Discussions about moderation are specifically forbidden.” so Ministry of Men’s Affairs @30 you have broken the rules in fact so has John Potter. I believe we might have more freedom of speech in other countries such as China. Any website that refuses any discussion about moderation is not in the best interests of those who contribute, rather in the interests of itself – but I should have said that.

But then there is this “All articles on MENZ.org.nz are published by individual members, with no moderation by the administrator.” Now which is it, if there is no moderation then then “discussions about moderation are specifically forbidden.” is somewhat moot, there is no moderation, (but again I shouldn’t bring this up. Why do I suddenly feel more comfortable with my dealings in the Family Court???

Downunder, so an article is not moderated if you are ordered to withdraw it – but that is different than “some moderation” of discussion – I think my intelligence is now being insulted. I now believe I would prefer to be offended by Tim. To remove an article is censorship. To moderate discussion is also control. Under 1000 members, I wonder why?

I may as well make my comment regarding Tim’s contribution. Upon reading it, I got a chill, and a rush of pessimism and hopelessness. You see I have heard it all before from the lips of the officials who did us harm. Nobody who has been though this talks like that. I saw the Dulluth Wheel once or twice, as a male, I could only be offender – now I contend that by being officially used – this amounts to violence by the state and NGO’s against males. Our particular case involves maternal violence towards the kids – yet those who spoke the words Tim wrote did not help mum be non-violent – but exploited the situation to go after the kids safe parent –
me. So clearly violence in many circumstances is approved on by the state. We might also reference the current moves that would make it legal for females to kill their partners, and be believed with some excuse after the event – surely that shows a receptive mood by the state to violence –
it just depends by what criterion is the license to kill issued. The policy Tim believes in may sound fair in the way he wrote it, but its the way its applied that matters. And because its applied differently every time for no apparent good reason, we can never come to understand it or comply with it. I read Tim’s piece and my vision was of CYPS – the department and its anti-social workers maliciously undermined me, perjured and caused ongoing harm to family and the children. I agree with Tim so far that violence is to be minimised, but I temper that with the reality we are biological creatures who will do whatever is required to survive and protect our kin. I also believe in provocation, to take a hypothetical example – if you injure someone who is on the verge of stabbing you to death – under today’s ludicrous policies, you injuring the guy with a knife is violence for which you would be culpable, and in some court perhaps even be jailed for. Idiotic stuff. At the time, I brushed past Tim’s item and went to a comfort coffee. But even seeing his piece agrivated my PTSD.

I think Tim @15 in fact put out the most realistic solution to your problems martin.

It may not be what you want to hear but that is what most likely a judge will tell you.
Have you been found to be violent?
What threshold of violence was met?
What have you done to stop violence?
What have you done to reform you from being violent to others?

For as long as you have (not satisfied a judge, that you are aware, that violence is a choice, that you no longer will to undertake), the judge cannot help you.

All he will hear is excuses.
I accept they are true and have led you to react but they are not this concerns. ie (my ex wife cheated on me or not, got me fired, primed my kid to offend me, took my kids from me…. and yaada yaada yaada)

These are all reasons justifying the action. But the action itself confirms you have acted violently even if the violence was at very low threshold.

You must move beyond the causes and find better way to deal with this level of stress. You must document what strategies you have learned and how you have implemented them in your parenting and how you will manage your violence in the future.

And you must coherently present that to the next judge.

As for Tim’s next point, I think it is highly relevant to note that:

If you are on any benefit, you are entitled to supplementary benefits.
In fact, you are entitled to anything you want. You are a ward of the state and they administer your trust. As a beneficiary, You simply must ask for what you want and they cannot deny it. So the shit they call no repayment loans are not what they are: They are Entitlements. Which is another word for rights.
They are yours if you know of them and if you can claim them.

With all due respect, I do not like your attitude and how you run a man down for providing good advice without all the emotional “poor you” types of comments.

Furthermore, and if you have had a serious heart attack, perhaps you are on the wrong benefit?

WrongGender @41: Your repeat of Tim’s points ignores the challenges that have been made on this thread since then.

The questions remain as to what constitutes violence. The definition of violence has been expanded at feminist insistence and that broad definition is now used by the Family Court. Hitting, pushing, smacking are not necessarily violence although they are physical force. It depends on their exact nature, purpose and context.

Even if it is accepted that a behaviour was violent, when that was out of character, in unusual circumstances of stress or under provocation why should this be seen as being more important than the benefits of a father’s role? Why after such an event should a father have to jump through hoops and convince a judge he won’t do it again before he can continue to provide a father’s role to his children? The emphasis on minor or infrequent physical reactions as if they outweigh anything else is a feminist invention based on ideology and propaganda more than good evidence. If indeed rare acts of what is now called ‘violence’ were so damaging then every person who grew up in the smacking era must be seriously fucked up; they are not. And every person who was hit by a friend or slapped by a woman for behaving poorly must be seriously scarred and their ongoing good relationship with that friend or woman must be wrong; this is not the case. It’s mostly all stuff and nonsense.

Your repeated use of the word ‘must’ is an interesting ‘power and control’ example and implies moral imperative. Yes, it’s correct that under current law and Family Court practice, if a father has behaved ‘violently’ (as you say, even if the violence was at a very low threshold), he will have to jump through the hoops that you describe and he will have to make out he is truly sorry and takes full responsibility and doesn’t blame others or circumstances yaada yaada yaada (to use your disrespectful term) if he is to be allowed to return to being a father. But should that be the case? And is it ok for a father put in that position to object to that and to appeal to reason and fairness here, on a site for discussing men’s issues?

Remember also that some men will not play this father-demeaning game. If the feminist regime wants children to be damaged by missing out on their father’s contribution to their lives, so be it. And those fathers are welcome to come here and to complain about that child-abusing regime rather than colluding with it or bowing down to it.

thank you, If I had more time and had not reread the comments about helium above, I would grant you a more elaborate reply.

I will not engage with your ideological stance as I think it is a waste of time.
You can superimpose ideology to reality nay day if you wish but when reality jumps up and bites you on the ass, you must concede it does not feel good.

Perhaps news@15 is not welcome at this time as poster seems very aggrieved, stressed and concerned and therefore the contemplation of such drastic steps may even overwhelm him.

I feel that he needs education to address his unreasonable fears about costs but costs are the least of his problem. Finding a good lawyer on legal aid is much harder. And being on legal aid naturally protects him from costs. So if you have suggestions for representations, I suggest you get that going for him.

So he has gotten one step right. If he really wants to go on with his children and continue to have a relationship he must do well to look after his emotional welfare and mental health.
So if you have suggestions for support groups and people you can get him in touch with that can sympathise with him and show him that life within the FC makes us the best parents ever. And sometimes we even win and get to parent our children again.

Women love for you to be miserable when they are mean like that. The best victory one can expect in a situation like this is to live one’s life well for one self and for one’s children. Anything less is forfeiting a future with one’s kids. And worse, denying one self the will to live and one’s children right to have one in their adult lives.

If he is thinking of suicide, I can tell him this: He is not the only one in this situation. There are millions of us and we have contemplated it and even courted it.

But suicide in my book is cowardice. A real man may not fight evil with evil but he will make sure he survives for his kids and for himself.

SO he got the house – how lucky!!!, let him fill it up with backapckers or air BnB guests. Get them to pay a fair price to cover his mortgage if any and if he has any surplus to make sure to live a little. One step at a time.

Children once they reach a certain age always return to the roost. HE NEEDS to build himself up mentally, emotionally and psychologically and that takes time. But if he has done it before, he can do it again.

Sorry WrongGender, I switched off, far too many assumptions and ideology for me. I did find this exceptional though “life within the FC makes us the best parents ever.” This could only be trumped by “as well as 3 years behind bars” or something similar. Have you ever listened to Noam Chomsky, presumably he is a little smarter and well read than us all. He believes violence is a necessary part of life. Your comments sound so much like a standard witch hunt “repent for your since and you will be punished less severely”.

Read this to confirm how f……. up CYFS is and their belief systems of supporting women

Jared Savage is a gutless twat and only flys where the shit sticks the most, sometimes they have no choice but to publish what everybody already knows.
The New Zealand Herald knew about this along time ago.

Buster @ 49: Thanks for providing us with this article. The case is portrayed as the mother choosing to stay with a bad man and thereby putting her children at risk, but quite frankly a woman who hangs with meth people is probably doing meth and crime herself, and her lifestyle priorities almost rule her out as someone who can be trusted to be responsible for children.

It’s somewhat heartening to see that some judges will see and tell the truth; if only they all could divest themselves of the feminist bias and propaganda that clouds their views.

It’s heartening too to see that Sarah Calvert recognized the father’s reasonable concerns that may have led him sometimes to appear unreasonable, and she recognized the complex form of parental alienation that now caused the teenage daughter to reject her father.

Things are changing, it’ll take a long time; we’ve only just begun. (to quote a few song titles…)

Just had 2 days in FC and am awaiting judges decision. I decided to go it alone, having considered all the advice given and feel much better for it. Since I started this thread (19 May) someone tried to break into the ex’s house (we all know who she tried to blame). She also has a pic taken by her “security camera” of someone at her letterbox (I presume putting something in it – as is normal with letterboxes) but she testified that that was”someone who looked like me (you can only see mid torso down at about 15m) and since she doesn’t know anyone else who would want to interfere with her letterbox, it must be me!! – I think even the LFC had a chuckle at that. It then occurred to me that I knew I had seen the ex’s lawyer before and that the only reason I hadn’t recognised her is that she wasn’t wearing the “red nose” that she would normally wear! 🙂

Anyway – here is my prediction – no PO, supervision with court appointed supervisor for another 4-10 session for my daughter followed by supervision by my new partner. My boys however, because they have ben alienated and the court won’t take its ugly head out of its ass, they will be in full custody of their mother with the right to take up supervised access if they want.

A big guess there, but hey it keeps me entertained while I wait on the decision. I’ll keep you informed.

wrongender @44 – We have an a saying where i come from that goes “what do you expect from a pig, but a grunt!” I like this saying.

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